Fashion designer Wayne Hemingway has revealed that he looked to the Sixties mod movement and hit TV show 'Mad Men' when redesigning fast-food chain McDonald's uniforms.

BY Harry Wallop |
20 June 2012

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The uniforms will first be seen on staff working in McDonald's four outlets on the Olympic Park and Athletes village in Stratford, but will then be rolled out to all 87,500 workers in the UK this autumn.

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The main "crew", who work behind the counters flipping burgers and frying chips, will wear polo shirts, in mustard yellow for the men and "gherkin green" for the women. Customer care assistants have check shirts with green dark green trousers or skits. Managers are in black and white, but with the female managers wearing a mustard yellow neck scarf.

Hemingway, who made his name founding the Red or Dead fashion label, said: "We wanted to put some colour into it. We wanted colours that reflected where McDonald's and the restaurants were going. We haven't gone for bright reds and yellows. We've gone for more muted colours.

They replace a range of "mocha brown" and black uniforms that were introduced four years ago.

He said the look, with skinny ties for the male managers, pencil skirts for the female managers, and Fred Perry style polo shirts were inspired by a mixture of the 1960s mod movement and Mad Men, the American television programme set in that decade.

"We wanted classic design. A narrow tie will always be fashionable. There is a very subtle hint to the mod look, which has never gone out of fashion. Fred Perry has never gone out of fashion. That's why we've gone for a polo shirt with a bit of a trim."

He said the managers' outfits, which are more formal, "hark back to a day of really classy air travel". He added: "There's just a little bit of Mad Men."

It was inevitable that the uniforms reference classic designs, he explained. "If you think how do we design something that has never, never been done before, you end up looking like an extra from Star Trek."

Baseball caps have been ditched. "We wanted to break away from baseball caps. These are more bakers caps or something you'd find in an pizzeria in Italy. I have a thing about baseball caps - they are a little bit too American, and they are about sport and petrol pump attendants."

All the uniforms, eventually, will be completely recyclable, with no textiles going to landfill and the torn, or old clothes being used to remake new uniforms in a system known as "closed loop". Currently, the uniforms are used to make rags and furniture stuffings.

Mr Hemingway, famous for his quirky fashion designs and now for designing low-carbon houses, admitted that he was not the obvious person to work with McDonald's: "Yes, when we first started working with McDonald's we got a lot of comments and eyebrows were raised," but he added that he was impressed by the company's environmental credentials, the use of only free range eggs, and its use of chip fat oil to power its lorries.

He said his favourite McDonald's favourite food was porridge and hot chocolate.